Two local wrestlers head to state meet in Bakersfield

Two local seniors have made it to the ultimate stage of high school wrestling -- the California Interscholastic Federation Boys Wrestling Championship.

Pioneer's Max Best and Woodland's Emilio Flores are set to travel to Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield for the state meet beginning this morning with weigh-ins at 7 a.m. and wrestling scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m.

Live results can be found through the CIF website, where Saturday's semifinal and championship rounds will be broadcast online.

Best (184 pounds) placed fifth at the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters Meet last weekend while Flores (160) was sixth, with the Top 7 from each weight class advancing to today's tournament.

Best opens in an outbracket matchup against Toby Fitzjarrel of West Valley of Cottonwood, the Northern Section's No. 3 seed. The winner will face San Diego Section champion Waseem Elhamad of Mira Mesa.

Flores, who is not in an outbracket match, starts off Central Section title holder Josh Hokit of Clovis. With a victory he'd move on to either Ebert Diaz of Richmond's Leadership Public School, the Oakland Section champion, or the winner of an outbracket contest between Exeter's Tyler Coker and Hoover's Arthur Ghukasian.

Best is the fourth Patriot to reach the state meet since the school's opening in 2003. As for Flores, Woodland's history is murkier since records have not been kept of all Wolves state qualifiers -- plus the school's wrestling history extends beyond the first iteration of this tournament in 1973. Since that year, though, 15 Woodland wrestlers have captured a total of 16 state medals. The last one to so was Oscar Romero, Jr. in 2002, who finished in fifth place at 130 pounds.